As the embattled Premier tried to recover from last week's election humiliation, the former Home Secretary stepped up the pressure.

Mr Clarke, a staunch Tony Blair loyalist throughout his Cabinet career, said Mr Brown had placed too much reliance on inflammatory rhetoric since he took over at Number Ten.

He referred contemptuously to "dog-whistle politics" - that is, using remarks designed to produce an unthinking response from a particular group.

Pioneered by Right-wing parties in the U.S. and Australia, it has typically involved campaigning against immigration using moderate language that will not alienate liberals but will still resonate with more conservative voters - in much the same way as only dogs hear high-pitched whistles.

Mr Clarke said: "We should finish with dog whistle language such as 'British jobs for British workers', which flatter some of the most chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of British society.

"We should suspend the black arts of divisive inner-party briefing and bullying which penalise and inhibit debate and discussion," he added in an article for Left-wing Progress magazine.

Describing last week's local election results as "a slap in the face", Mr Clarke said the electorate had a right to expect better from Labour.

He added: "The electorate mostly wants us to succeed but believes that we have stumbled.

"It was not a rejection of Labour and all that we have achieved in the last 11 years, and so our job is to regain their confidence."

Mr Clarke also called on Chancellor Alistair Darling to publish a mini-Budget to explain how he plans to compensate the millions hit by the axing of the 10p tax rate.

The call for a mini-Budget - last used by the Tories under John Major to deal with a cash crisis - came at a terrible moment for Mr Brown.

He is desperate to avoid the 10p fiasco becoming the dominant issue of the vital Crewe and Nantwich by-election in a fortnight.

There were signs yesterday that the Government was winning its battle to calm Labour nerves over how best to compensate the estimated 5.3million people left worse off by the decision to abolish the 10p starting rate of tax.

Former minister Frank Field and former Whip Greg Pope emerged from a meeting with Mr Darling saying they believed the Treasury would address their concerns.

Mr Field has threatened to put down another Commons motion calling on the Government to set out in detail how the compensation package will work.

He also wants a guarantee that it will be backdated.

Mr Field's motion last month served as a rallying point for rebels and forced a Government climbdown ahead of what threatened to be a humiliating Parliamentary defeat.

Before his meeting with the Chancellor, Mr Field said the failure to explain the 10p issue had damaged Labour in last week's elections.

He called for the issue to be resolved before the Crewe by-election.

In a statement issued last night, Mr Field and Mr Pope said: "The Chancellor made the undertaking that he was actively searching for as many of the losers as possible and that he is considering a whole range of methods by which the 10p losers could be compensated."

A spokesman for Mr Darling said: "He categorically assured them that he was going to do as much as he can to help people who lost out.

"He is looking at a range of options but he is not going to be rushed into this. It is better to get it right than to put out a quick solution."

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell warned that sorting out the details of the compensation package was "complex".

"We have accepted that we should have addressed the groups that lost out more quickly and we are coming forward with proposals to do exactly that," he added.

"Everyone accepts that it is a complex matter."

A 90-minute meeting of Cabinet ministers yesterday produced a clear view that the Government should focus on getting its compensation package right before it publishes it, Labour sources said.